July 8-14, 2004

city beat

fineprint

Less words, more story.

What Goes Around

Beginning Saturday, the city will host the annual NAACP Convention for the first time since 1961. J. Whyatt Mondesire, president of the local chapter, says he expects up to 7,000 people to gather at the Convention Center and that the event will be a hefty boon for the city.

"It'll probably put close to $4 million in the city's coffers," he says. "I think the mayor will be happy about that."

The 95th annual convention will feature Mayor John Street and Congressman Chaka Fattah, as well as Julian Bond, NAACP national chairman, and Kweisi Mfume, its president and CEO. Health and youth issues are set to dominate the agenda.

For three of the six convention days, an exhibit will honor Paul Robeson. During the anti-communism hysteria in the 1950s, Robeson, a world-renowned scholar, actor, activist, athlete, lawyer and singer, was branded "un-American" because of his views. Banished from the stage and the silver screen, he lived his last 10 years in near obscurity with his sister in West Philadelphia.

The Robeson exhibit is peppered with irony. In 1945, Robeson won the Spingarn Award, the NAACP's highest honor. Five years later, in the heat of the House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings, the head of the NAACP publicly denounced him. A world traveler, Robeson pointed out that racism was not tolerated in the Soviet Union. For many, his stance was too sympathetic to a political system that may have threatened the security of the U.S. His further suggestion that blacks not fight in World War II until the government dismantled racism in the U.S. was seen as outrageous.

Scholars and historians say that as the civil rights movement was getting under way, many so-called "black intellectuals" were concerned that any connections between blacks and communism would hamper the effort. Robeson was seen as dangerous to the cause, and even baseball hero Jackie Robinson said he was "silly and uninformed."

Half a century later, the tone has softened considerably.

"The NAACP never officially went on the record condemning Paul Robeson," says an NAACP spokesperson. "But Walter White [former NAACP executive secretary] did give an interview to Ebony magazine saying he disagreed with Robeson's position. I believe he said that Robeson was "bewildered; more to be pitied than to be damned.' Now, however, we all realize that Paul Robeson was way ahead of his time."
— Deborah Bolling

Pleading the First

Since 1994, Temple Law School and its dean have survived at least three civil rights lawsuits and one criminal complaint from students and alumni connected with one student group, with no more than a partial defeat and damages of $1 awarded. Last week, a fourth civil rights lawsuit against the school went to court.

In a two-day trial in U.S. District Court, Donald S. Sabatini, a 1995 alumnus, sued both the law school and the university for violating his First Amendment rights. The original suit, filed in May 1999, had Dean Robert J. Reinstein among the accused, but Temple's motion to remove him as a defendant was granted in November of that year.

Both parties agree that Sabatini attended law school graduations from 1997 to 1999 and in 2001 and that each year he handed out leaflets with information on the earlier lawsuits to passersby in the lobby.

In 1994, Reinstein suspended Lincoln Herbert, another law student, for pepper-spraying a man Herbert said was a would-be robber. Herbert filed two civil-rights lawsuits and one criminal complaint following his suspension; the criminal complaint and one civil-rights suit were dismissed, the other resulted in a partial victory on appeal. In 1996, fellow law student Mark Rhoads filed a civil-rights suit that was later withdrawn claiming Reinstein had unfairly treated the Western Heritage Society, a conservative student group of which Rhoads, Herbert and Sabatini were all officers.

Each year, police told Sabatini not to distribute materials in the lobby, and that he would be arrested if he continued to do so.

At the trial, Carrie Watts argued for Temple that Sabatini was asked to leave because he blocked the flow of traffic.

Sabatini scoffed at the idea that he could block a 30-foot-by-100-foot lobby by himself, saying, "I'm a big guy, but I'm not that big."

Sabatini said police stopped him because of the fliers' contents. He testified that two police officers first asked him for a leaflet, skimmed it, and only then asked him to leave.

"He wasn't removed upon seeing him distributing, he was removed upon reviewing the contents," said Glenn Holck, Sabatini's lawyer.

Much of the trial was spent discussing what Sabatini viewed as "animosity toward the Western Heritage Society."

Sabatini said there were numerous instances in which the group was prevented from distributing materials and bringing in speakers because their conservative viewpoints were unpopular.

Lt. Robert Lowell of the Campus Safety Unit testified that even if animosity toward WHS existed in the law school, the police knew nothing of it.

Holck argued that there "wasn't a specific memo that said if you see these WHS guys, bust their shoes." Rather, he said, "there's some wider knowledge that these guys are pains in the ass" which trickled throughout Temple by "osmosis."

Judge Richard Surrick's ruling is not expected for at least two weeks.
— Julia Zhou